On passion and quality
Why not be excellent in everything you do?
Earlier this week, I went for dinner at members club The House of Koko with a friend. After dinner, we navigated the labyrinthian building and headed to a tiny venue tucked away, to see ‘one of the girls who works here.’
My friend hadn’t known she sang too; I mean, how would she? Their usual interactions involve confirming bookings or finding out information about what’s on.
This tiny venue was packed out. And, at 9pm, this singer-songwriter (and model) joined her band on stage to wild applause.
Stage presence, a voice (what a voice) and charisma, Lovelle has all of it. If you get a chance to see her, do!
It was extraordinary to see the time and effort that’s clearly gone into working on her craft.
But what struck me was the ease with which she’d gone from her ‘regular job’ to this whole other persona (calling it a side hustle feels reductive), while still shouting out the offer on spritzes at Cafe KOKO (£7 every Wednesday), and supporting other people like her (her phenomenal backing singer, another singer who hadn’t performed in two years, her opening act (a Koko colleague).
We’re taught that what we do is our identity - a job title is how you introduce yourself. But Lovelle reminded me that who we are is made up of our beliefs, actions and passions. We can be many things, and we can bring excellence to all we do.
This includes our work, but also extends to how we engage with the people around us, how we rest and how we ensure we’re living - boldly - as full a human experience as possible. And how we’re bringing a type of stage presence into our everyday lives.
1. Are the UK's finances really worse than Labour expected?
This is a good piece of journalism; instead of simply reporting what politicians are telling us, providing analysis around this is so important.
Tomorrow, the (first ever female!) Chancellor will argue the public finances are in a bad place – and that will mean tough decisions.
Why is this happening and what does it mean?
We knew the state of the country’s finances, from the Office of Budget Responsibility’s reports. The surprises come from:
Public sector pay deals (including for teachers and NHS stuff) are likely to cost a lot more than expected
The Rwanda deportation stuff which the last government kept banging on about - apparently hundreds of millions were being spent on the Rwanda scheme; a lot more than Labour realised
Hospital building programmes in England costing a lot more than budgeted for
Extra spending commitments announced after last year’s Autumn Statement which need to be paid for
But Labour has still pledged not to increase income tax, National Insurance, VAT and corporation tax.
This next explainer from the article gets to the crux of the situation. “The new government is trying to frame the debate over the next few years. It wants to argue it has been left such a dire inheritance that it has to do some pretty unpopular things.
“It wants you to blame the Conservatives – not Labour.
“The former chancellor Jeremy Hunt argues this is all nonsense and has warned Labour is paving the way for tax rises it did not disclose during the election campaign.
“The Labour strategy though is not a new one.
“The Conservatives did something similar when they won power in 2010, arguing that Labour in power had crashed the economy and left the government with no cash – and that was why austerity was essential.
“It's an argument Conservatives still make to this day.”
At the end of the day, politics is still politics.
2. Cards, cash and currencies: how to make your money go further on holiday
There was a piece last week about paying in local currency rather than your home currency, so you already know this bit.
The big thing for me here was cash; MoneySavingExpert.com (🫶) has a tool where you enter your postcode and the currency you want to buy, and it shows you the best deals.
Cash is clunky but it can often means you end up better off financially for several reasons:
You have a fixed exchange rate
You can sometimes negotiate a lower price on products, since merchants don’t have to pay card companies to use their infrastructure
You are more likely to be mindful when spending, rather than tapping your money away freely
3. Is it worth unlocking cash from your home?
You might have heard of the term ‘equity release’ - but what is it and how does it work?
Equity in this instance refers to the amount of the property that you own (if you’ve paid off your mortgage it’s 100%, if you’re earlier on in your mortgage term, it’s going to be less than that). The capital tied up in your property isn’t something you can easily convert into cash to spend on things like care, or travel, or gifts.
That’s where equity release comes in.
There are two types of equity release:
Lifetime mortgage (the most common type); a loan taken out against the house, where you get a lump sum or monthly payments (tax free), with interest on top of it (plus the value of the mortgage needs to be paid back to the lender when the house is sold)
Home reversion plan (less popular); a firm becomes the owner of the property (% determined by you both), you become the leaseholder, and you get a lump sum for the amount they’ve bought
The number of people taking out these products has increased:
The cost of retirement has been going up, driving people to them
Between the first and second quarter of 2024, total lending went up by 15% - and new equity release customers rose by 12%
But total lending is down 13% annually and the rate of new customers has dropped by 22%, suggesting there is still some hesitation towards the product
Will be interesting to see how this changes over time, but I would expect to see more homeowners choosing to go down this route.
✨ Other things! ✨
MONEY
UK drivers are still paying too much for fuel, the competition watchdog has warned (and is applying pressure to supermarkets to change this)
Check your travel insurance includes ‘travel disruption cover’ so that you’re covered in case of something like a global IT outage from a botched software update
LIFE
Many studies that have shown that moderate amounts of alcohol consumption have make little difference to your health, compared with non-drinkers. But, turns out, these studies compare drinkers with an increasingly unhealthy group of people who only abstain or drink very little later in life (typically due to illness) - which is going to produce skewed results1
I work in tech, but also run Money Brunch events - and write this every week! Writing is something I know I want to spend more time doing and without having started down this road, I wouldn’t have figured out that it energises and excites me.
If, like me, you want to write more (or write, full stop) and worry less, why not join this free, two hour online workshop on Wednesday, called The Perfectionist’s Half Assed Writing Challenge. See you there?
I realise this sounds like an ad (I heard about it via an ad in a newsletter ‘lol’) but it’s actually not.
Know someone who would enjoy this in their inbox on a Sunday morning?
I don’t drink anymore and I know many people still do. This isn’t me preaching the health benefits of not drinking; rather it’s pointing to (likely deliberate) flaws in research which benefit the alcohol industry (critical thinking, baby!)